STRATEGEM OF BOONE]

Most of the settlers came from the interior of North Carolina and
Virginia; and brought with them the manners and customs of those
States. These manners and customs were primitive enough. The following
exceedingly graphic description, which we transcribe from "Doddridge's
Notes," will afford the reader a competent idea of rural life in the
times of Daniel Boone.

"HUNTING.--This was an important part of the employment of the early
settlers of this country. For some years the woods supplied them with
the greater amount of their subsistence, and with regard to some
families, at certain times, the whole of it; for it was no uncommon
thing for families to live several months without a mouthful of bread.
It frequently happened that there was no breakfast until it was obtained
from the woods. Fur and peltry were the people's money. They had nothing
else to give in exchange for rifles, salt, and iron, on the other side
of the mountains.

"The fall and early part of the winter was the season for hunting deer,
and the whole of the winter, including part of the spring, for bears and
fur-skinned animals. It was a customary saying that fur is good during
every month in the name of which the letter R occurs.

"The class of hunters with whom I was best acquainted, were those
whose hunting ranges were on the eastern side of the river, and at the
distance of eight or nine miles from it. As soon as the leaves were
pretty well down, and the weather became rainy, accompanied with light
snows, these men, after acting the part of husbandmen, so far as the
state of warfare permitted them to do so, soon began to feel that
they were hunters. They became uneasy at home. Every thing about them
became disagreeable. The house was too warm. The feather-bed too soft,
and even the good wife was not thought, for the time being, a proper
companion. The mind of the hunter was wholly occupied with the camp
and chase.

"I have often seen them get up early in the morning at this season,
walk hastily out, and look anxiously to the woods and snuff the autumnal
winds with the highest rapture, then return into the house and cast a
quick and attentive look at the rifle, which was always suspended to
a joist by a couple of buck horns, or little forks. His hunting dog,
understanding the intentions of his master, would wag his tail, and by
every blandishment in his power express his readiness to accompany him
to the woods.

"A day was